Future tenants influence Studer apartment building

The 370 prospective tenants on the wait list for a unit in the $50 million, downtown apartment building under development by Quint and Rishy Studer will have a say in the building’s design and amenities.(Photo: connj)

The 370 prospective tenants on the wait list for a unit in the $50 million apartment building planned for Jefferson and Romana streets will have a say in the building’s design and amenities.

Decisions like kitchen appliances, bathroom configurations, pool features and pet services will be influenced by data culled from four surveys sent out by email and from seven focus groups to be held on Aug. 22.

Quint and Rishy Studer are developing the project on the former site of the Pensacola News Journal. They purchased the land in December 2013 for $3.4 million.

“If you have a database of people who say they are your customers, why would you not tap into them and ask them what you want?” said Andrew Rothfeder, president of Studer Properties. “It makes common sense to us.”

The feedback will go into construction drawings that are under way and should be completed by the end of September. Lincoln Property Company of Duluth, Ga., and Impact Campaigns of Pensacola are working with Studer Properties to gather and analyze the data.

“It’s a really good process when the developer does it,” said Chris Burns, vice president of Lincoln Property Company. “It ultimately really does fit the end project to the customer demand in that you get the unit sizes right, you get the finishes right.”

As a result of early feedback, for example, the number of one bedrooms in the 269-unit building will be decreased slightly in favor of more two bedroom units because of a preference for the larger units in survey responses. The response rate for the first survey, sent to a wait list of 295, at the time, was 73 percent.

More than 100 of those on the wait list will participate in seven focus groups on Aug. 22.

“We will take some of the survey results and drill down while we have people in the room in person,” Burns said.

The Architectural Review Board will assess the material selection at its Aug. 20 meeting. Demolition of the old PNJ building should be complete by the first week of September, followed by a month of environmental work on the site’s soil.

Permits will be pulled in October and construction will begin in November. Completion of the building is targeted for early 2017.

“We’re in the sausage-making phase where there’s not necessarily a lot of sexy stuff that is visible,” Rothfeder said, “but the duck’s feet is moving fast underneath the water.”